A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

17
NATIONALIST IN THE VIET NAM WARS MEMOIRS OF A VICTIM TURNED SOLDIER Nguyễn Công Luận

description

Chapter 26 from Nguyen Cong Luan's memoir Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars. In this chapter, he describes his experiences during the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Transcript of A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Page 1: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

NATIONALIST IN THE VIET NAM WARSMEMOIRS OF A VICTIM TURNED SOLDIER

Nguyễn Công Luận

NAT

ION

ALIST

IN T

HE V

IET N

AM

WA

RS

INDIANA

Luận$39.95MEMOIR • VIETNAM WAR

“An important book. One of the most compelling and thoughtful

ARVN [Army of the Republic of Viet Nam] accounts I have ever read.

. . . It is an unblinking, unflinching account . . . a very honest book; the author’s integrity comes through on

every page.” —DAVID T. ZABECKI,

MAJ. GEN., U.S. ARMY (RET.)

“Of all the many books I have read about the Vietnam War, this one pays

the ultimate tribute to the incred-ible sacrifices made by the coura-

geous soldiers and people of South Vietnam. Through the eyes of a true patriot, the history and decisive op-erations of the conflict are reviewed

from the unique perspective of a vic-tim turned soldier. I have known the

author for nearly four decades and can attest to his personal courage, his passion for life, and his intense love for his country. This book is a must-

read for those who want the com-plete picture and whole truth about a

tragic war that consumed the world for over two decades.”

—LAWSON W. MAGRUDER III, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, U.S. ARMY

(RET.), VIETNAM ’70 –’71

This extraordinary memoir tells the story of one man’s experience of the wars of Viet Nam from the time he was old enough to be aware of war in the 1940s until his departure for America 15 years after the collapse of South Viet Nam in 1975.

Nguyễn Công Luận was, by his account, “just a nobody.” Born and raised in small villages near Ha Noi, he and his family knew war at the hands of the Japanese, the French, and the Viet Minh. Living with wars of conquest, colonialism, and revolution led him finally to move south and take up the cause of the Republic of Viet Nam, chang-ing from a life of victimhood to that of a soldier. His stories of village life in the north are every bit as compelling as his stories of combat and the tragedies of war.

“I’ve done nothing important,” Luận writes. “Neither have I strived to make myself a hero.” Yet this honest and impassioned ac-count of life in Viet Nam from World War II through the early years of the unified Communist government is filled with the everyday heroism of the common people of his generation.

Luận’s forthright portrayal of the French co-lonial occupation, of the corruption and bru-tality of the Communist system, of the sys-temic weakness and corruption of the South Vietnamese government, and of the U.S. military and government’s handling of the war may perturb readers of diverse points of view. However, most readers will agree that this memoir provides a unique and important perspective on life in Viet Nam during the years of conflict that brought so much suf-fering to Luận and his fellow Vietnamese.

Nguyễn Công Luận was born in 1937 and grew up in North Viet Nam. Following the 1954 Geneva Agreement, which divided the na-tion in two, he moved south and enrolled in the Republic of Viet Nam Military Academy, then served in the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam until 1975. Incarcerated for six years and seven months in communist prison camps, he immi-grated to the United States in 1990. He is an associate editor of The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War.

Front jacket photo: CORBIS

Bloomington & Indianapolis iupress.indiana.edu1-800-842-6796

Nationalist Viet Nam jacket MECH.indd 1 12/5/11 11:32 AM

Page 2: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

451

The End

Dar k Apr il

When I stepped out of the plane at the Air America terminal in Tân Sơn Nhất, the Vietnamese girl who checked the manifest asked me, “Why do you come back? Đà Lạt fell last night.” I said nothing, because it might have taken a few hours to explain what I was thinking to one who had never been a soldier.

I didn’t go on leave traditionally given to those just coming back from schooling abroad and went on to work at the GPWD. That was one of the longest months in my life. There were too many events that frightened everybody. My superiors were all nervous and so busy that they did not remember to complete the last simple pa-perwork to make my promotion to lieutenant colonel official. As for me, I didn’t like to ask them to act. So I could claim myself a major or a lieutenant colonel as I liked.

The American plan to evacuate a number of Vietnamese heightened panic in Sài Gòn. U.S. Air Force C-5A flights were evacuating Vietnamese orphans out of the country in the “Baby Lift” operation. Other U.S. flights moved Viet-namese who were related to U.S. citizens. Then a large number of Vietnamese began to seek ways to leave Việt Nam.

The death of General Nguyễn Văn Hiếu moved me deeply. General Hiếu died by a pistol shot in Biên Hòa on April 8 when I had just returned from the States. Some said he was shot by a corrupt general’s underling; others said he accidentally killed himself when he was cleaning his pistol. Among my bosses in my years serving the ARVN, General Hiếu had been my favorite. He had impeccable manners and was a brilliant commander. His death aggravated my despair at the survival chances of the RVN.

The situation deteriorated greatly when an ARVN Air Force pilot who had deserted to the communist side flew an RVNAF jet fighter and tried to drop a

t w e n t y- s i x

Page 3: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

452 · Victory or Defeat

bomb on the Presidential Palace. He missed. The A-37 had been captured by the communist forces weeks earlier in Central Việt Nam.

On April 17, the anticommunist regime in Cambodia under President Lon Nol was overthrown. Its prime minister, Sirik Matak, refused the U.S. ambas-sador’s offer to evacuate him and died bravely at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The last words of his letter to the ambassador read, “I have committed the mis-take of believing in you, the Americans.” Most Vietnamese nationalists like me did not believe in the American leaders either, but we found no better friend to rely on.

The fall of Phnom Penh seemed to precipitate the fate of Sài Gòn. I felt that the end was coming closer.

The deadliest blow came when the U.S. Congress refused to allocate more military aid to South Việt Nam. Many people sought help from American friends or bribed officials to flee the country by American air transportation; some even managed to have their children registered in the list of orphans to be flown by the “Baby Lift.”

Every day, more friends left the country with their families. A few of them let their families go first while they stayed. I felt such a solution acceptable, but my wife firmly rejected it. She said she and the whole family would be beside me and share with me everything that might happen to me whether I decided to go or stay.

Many times in my dreams, I saw myself dialing my office telephone to get through to my friends at long-distance area codes 957 or 958 or 964 in Phú Bài, Đà Nẵng, Qui Nhơn, and elsewhere. These areas were under control of com-munist forces.

In the second week of April, I met Ogden Williams at the home of Mr. Buss, who was an advisor to the Rural Development Ministry. I just asked them about the possibilities of defending South Việt Nam. Williams had been a good friend to Việt Nam since 1955. He was trying to do something to help. He was working on the idea of asking Iran for military aid.

I hated to ask any of them to help my family, even Lee Broddock in the U.S. embassy. Kenneth Quinn had introduced me to him for the translation of my study on North Việt Nam. Lee had my address and telephone number. I was unable to contact him in the last hours.

I was living the last days of Sài Gòn with a lonely feeling when my friends fled one after another. My best friends who could help were too far away.

On April 23, President Gerald Ford announced that the Việt Nam War was “a war that is finished.” Along with Congress’s failure to pass a supplemental aid bill for Vietnam, Ford’s statement destroyed our last hope.

Then President Thiệu resigned and was replaced by Vice President Tran Văn Hương. A few days later, Hương resigned. Power was shifted to General Dương Văn Minh, whose ascent to power had not been provided for by the RVN

Page 4: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 453

constitution. The political solution was only hastening the already irrecoverable panic among the people and soldiers.

French statesmen and diplomats were trying to negotiate a peaceful solu-tion to the conflict. Their failure to do so only aggravated our despair. In that situation, I couldn’t decide what to do. I knew for certain that I would be in danger at the hands of the communists, but I also hesitated to flee. The feeling of being a “deserter” while the majority of my fighting fellows were still there was too great for me to make a final decision. So I had to wait until the last minute.

I heard a rumor that some groups of army soldiers and officers were plan-ning to bring down any airplane of former president Thiệu and former prime minister Trần Thiện Khiêm if they fled the country. However, the two leaders quietly left for Taiwan five days before Sài Gòn collapsed without any trouble. General Cao Văn Viên, joint chief of staff, followed suit.1

Another rumor circulated that some ARVN major units would fight U.S. combat forces if they entered Việt Nam to evacuate 1,000 American civil and military personnel. Anything was possible in a chaotic situation. But the rumor did not come true.

On April 28, a second VNAF fighter from the communist-controlled area attacked Tân Sơn Nhất Air Base. The bombing stopped most air traffic in and out of Tân Sơn Nhất. On April 29, only a few fix-winged planes took off. A com-munist missile hit and destroyed a VN Air Force cargo C-119. After that, only military helicopters were seen in the sky.

By the early morning of April 29, Sài Gòn’s main streets were jammed with traffic. People were nervous. They were heading for the quay areas and Tân Sơn Nhất Airport/Air Base to seek ways to escape the imminent disaster.

In that hopeless situation, on the front line in Xuân Lộc, Long Khánh, north of Sài Gòn, the ARVN Eighteenth Division still held its ground, fighting to stop the enemy. According to some news reports, the ARVN Air Force at-tacked the advancing communist force in Long Khánh, using a powerful bomb (either a CBU-55, cluster bomb unit, or a BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter”) that wiped out an NVA regiment. The news flashed a thin ray of optimism, but it was not bright enough to become a torch of hope.

Many friends of mine had a plan to withdraw their units to the Mekong Delta if there was an order, or even an appeal, from some leader to establish a new line of defense of a smaller republic in the “rice bowl” of Việt Nam. There was no such order or appeal as no leader had power and credibility enough to rally a disintegrating army. The new joint chief of staff had no way to assume full control of his armed forces.

The nationalist parties were too weak to do anything in such a desperate situ-ation. My Việt Quốc comrades in Military Region II, especially in the provinces

Page 5: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

454 · Victory or Defeat

of Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên, Huế, and Quảng Nam, suffered heavy losses after the area fell into the hands of the NVA divisions. The Việt Quốc strength in other parts of South Việt Nam was not strong enough to affect the situation.

Late on April 29, many of my men did not report to my GPWD, a noncom-bat service. At 4 pm, I stopped by my home for a quick dinner. “Kids! Should I stay home with you or go to my barracks?” I asked my children.

“The sergeant and the corporal down the street went to their units half an hour ago,” my fifteen-year-old daughter said. “You are a field grade . . .” I knew what she meant. I told my wife to take care of the family, jumped into my jeep, and nodded to the driver to go without looking back.

Since early in the afternoon, American Jolly Green Giant helicopters and their brother UH-1Bs had been picking up Americans and Vietnamese at several places—the Defense Attaché Office (DAO) landing zone, the U.S. embassy, and the top floors of many tall buildings. High in the sky, several U.S. jet fighters returned after more than two years to protect the evacuation.

At 9 pm, General Trần Văn Trung, who decided to stay until the last min-ute, called General Nguyễn Hữu Có, the defense minister newly appointed by President Dương Văn Minh. General Trung asked me to listen to their conver-sation on an extension phone. From them, I knew that the general situation over most of the Mekong Delta provinces was quiet. At least two infantry divisions with full strength were available for reinforcement to Sài Gòn.

But the JGS Operations Center, the key instrument to coordinate all move-ments, operations, and supports, ceased operating because only a few officers and NCOs were present. General Trung told me that even if the two divisions were in Sài Gòn that very minute, they could only extend the fate of the capital city for a few more days or a week when aid was cut. He looked tired, and I could tell how he was feeling lonely by his voice and his eyes.

That was my sleepless night, and the roaring of a dozen helicopters evacuat-ing people from the U.S. embassy only 100 yards from my barracks terrified me. I asked the guards to patrol around the block, warning them that bomb attacks were possible. Standing on the street corner beside the barrack, I could see thousands of Vietnamese stuck fast to the fence of the embassy. I tried to reach a U.S. Marine sergeant and ask him to let the two American reporters in, but no luck, as no one was allowed in or out after about 7 pm.

I felt paralyzed by despair. However, I was calm enough to deploy the guards platoon to maintain order around the barrack and around the embassy in coordination with the police. I had my men clear people away from the Thống Nhất Boulevard in front of the World Vision Building on the left side of the embassy so that a Chinook helicopter could have a safe place to land, put a group of refugees aboard, and then fly away. A big tree in the embassy back-yard broke under the strong wind of the Jolly Green helicopter, thus hindering

Page 6: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 455

others from landing in the backyard. After that, only the Hueys (UH-1) landed on the top floor.

That night, for the first time in my life, I drank half a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon without getting drunk.

At 6 am, General Trung went to the JGS meeting. He told Colonel Lương and me, the two field grade officers still present in the last minutes, that we must follow the order of the supreme command, which actually was the president’s office. About an hour later, the general’s sedan stopped at our front gate, drop-ping off his bodyguards. The driver took him to the Navy HQS. He kept his word that he would stay to the last minute. The last minutes were tickling slowly.

At about 8 am, Captain Sơn, a French-language translator in my office re-turned after a trip along with the retired General Vanuxem (former commander of French Army Vietnam/North Southern Zone, who managed the June 1954 retreat from the five provinces south of Hà Nội). During the 1955–75 war, Vanuxem was the strongest French supporter of South Việt Nam. The general needed Sơn as an interpreter on his tour around Sài Gòn to look at the defense system. Sơn’s pale face startled me when he stepped through the gate. He said that Vanuxem was totally disappointed.

“The general is certain that the soldiers who are still in defense positions will fight to the death. But we could stand no more than three days. When the com-munists move their heavy cannons closer, they will reduce this capital city to rubble. They will accept any price for the conquest of Sài Gòn. It is estimated that several thousand Saigonese will be killed. He said ‘adieu’ to me when he stopped by the Presidential Palace to advise General Minh to surrender,” Sơn said.

I had the same opinion. At the time, Sài Gòn was prepared for a major battle. Food and fuel stock was enough for the population of 1 million people, and there was enough medicine for the many hundreds of injured a day to last at least one month, according to a classified report from the JGS. But we could be defeated sooner than one month, perhaps in a week, because we had no more ammunition or other military supplies.

Although the troops in Sài Gòn were serving supporting units and they were rather dejected, I was certain that most of them would fight fiercely before they were routed. A flame always flares up before dying out.

The blue sky over Sài Gòn was clear and ominously quiet. On a regular day, Sài Gòn airspace used to be filled with the low rumbling of all kinds of airplanes, military and commercial. But that morning, the unusual silence heightened the people’s fear. At about 7 am, the last two U.S. Chinook helicopters circled around downtown Sài Gòn and headed east toward the sea.

Sài Gòn was in its last hour. Loud explosions of communist shelling were heard all around the city’s northwest region and more from the Tấn Sơn Nhất Airport.

Page 7: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

456 · Victory or Defeat

At about 10:30 am, General Dương Văn Minh, then president, announced his decision to surrender. Although I had expected it, the order to drop weapons shocked me. My eyes ached. The visual angle of my eyes seemed to shrink nar-rower, and everything around me looked as if it were shrouded by a veil of gray mist.

The thought of suicide flashed through my mind and seemed attractive. I held my pistol against my temple, thinking of what would happen if I stayed alive and suffered from my enemy’s atrocity.

My jeep driver rushed in. “Don’t do that, please, I beg you,” he said. His cheeks were smeared with tears and oil because he was checking the jeep en-gine. He held my arm and stuttered, “If you decide to end your life to go down there in the Netherworld, let me go along with you and I will keep being your driver.” He was a devoted Buddhist.

He was a stammerer. When getting excited, his words were jostling hard to get out of his throat. I couldn’t help laughing at his words and his countenance. His funny acts somehow calmed me. I told him that I did not decide anything but would wait and see.

“Pet Soldiers”—those who paid bribes or got help from high connections to be assigned noncombat jobs around Sài Gòn—were still present in my bar-racks. Many of them said they would rather fight to death than surrender and refused to go home when I told them that they were allowed to leave the bar-racks if they would because I didn’t consider them fit for combat.

A company of ninety paratroops under a captain, drifted from the front line, asked me to let them join the suicidal last battle. A group of about fifty police officers—half were field police—in a station nearby asked me to join as well. Three of the police who had been protecting the embassy the previous night said, “Sir, we’ve done our best to protect the people who have a good chance to be evacuated by the Americans, and we have wished them good luck. There must be some who stay for those who go. Now it’s our next thing to do. That is to fight.”

I reported their request to the assistant commander, Colonel Nguyễn Văn Lương, a brave and honest anticommunist veteran since 1945, then the highest-ranking officer present in my unit, the General Political Warfare Department. He ordered me to tell the troops that their willingness to fight was highly ap-preciated, but that they had to abide by the order of the president.

With eyes full of angry tears, he said, “Your suicidal fight, however heroic it could be, will not be mentioned by even one single word in the now unfriendly western media. Your self-sacrifice will be for nothing. You see, even thousands of unarmed civilians’ remains found in mass graves around Huế in 1968 were ignored or reported with only a few short sentences no longer than a notice for a lost pet dog, let alone your 300 lives. Furthermore, there are your parents, wives, and children. Just do as we are required by the order.”

Page 8: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 457

I stepped out into the front yard. The Airborne troops still sat on the roofs and the surrounding walls. Some were crying. Some took their weapons apart and threw the parts away when I told their captain the colonel’s final order.

My heart sank when I realized the stark truth: the armed forces of a million soldiers with the formidable Airborne and Marine divisions; the Air Force of nearly 1,200 airplanes, including 800 rotary wing planes, the fourth most power-ful on the list of the world air forces; the Navy with strong coastal and river force; the National Police of over 150,000 members—all were defeated so easily by the enemy, which was weaker in strength and in sophisticated means of war but had faithful allies.

It was like a lengthy nightmare.

A Brok en Cogwheel

In my last minutes as an ARVN field grade officer, I was filled with sorrow about my service and the goals I had failed to realize. I had served the RVN Army for nineteen years, six months, and twenty-five days. Who could easily put behind such a long career?

The unforgettable minute came at last as nobody could guess what would happen next. When the communist troops of a battalion along with their com-mander entered the barracks, Colonel Lương calmly received them. Their com-mander talked to the colonel politely, addressing him as “Colonel.” After hand-ing over control of the installation to the communist commander, the colonel told him he must pay a farewell salute to the flag. The two guards slowly lowered the red-stripes-on-yellow banner, then folded and placed it on the table of the gate security office. We then left for home.

I realized later that the communists didn’t behave so considerately in other areas out of the capital city. In many provinces, they detained officers and seized their homes, looting and even killing a lot of civilians who were labeled “reac-tionaries” not long after the surrender took effect.

I changed into civilian clothes and returned home. The streets around my neighborhood where the ARVN forces and the Self-Defense Corps held the last line of defense were littered with discarded tanks, weapons of all kinds, flak jack-ets, helmets, and field uniforms. The scene would never fade from my memory.

I would never forget how my mother and wife looked at me without a word when I stepped in. I took my Vespa scooter to go watch the enemy advance into Sài Gòn. My mother decided that my wife should go with me.

Not far from my street, the first NVA troops from the front on the west of the city were moving in. I could tell that it was a battalion by the Chinese-made radios and by its commander rank—captain—marching in formation of three rifle companies. However, it had no more than about thirty soldiers in each

Page 9: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

458 · Victory or Defeat

company. Information from J-2 intelligence reports in early April was proved correct. Personnel strength of the NVA units ran very low in the last battles.

The NVA troops were moving cautiously, their faces tense, while people along the streets were quietly watching from behind half-opened windows and doors.

Following the communist troops at a distance were thousands of disarmed ARVN soldiers from different units and the boot camp west of Sài Gòn. They were also marching into the city. Their talks made the air noisy, while coffee shops, restaurants, and houses that had anything to drink or eat opened their doors and invited the defeated soldiers to come in and served them beer, soda, coffee, soup, noodles, rice, and even cigarettes, almost everything for their re-freshment, and free of cost.

Only long after that did pro-communist figures show up on the streets in downtown Sài Gòn along with a few hundred spectators, welcoming the incom-ing NVA units. A group of young men called the people to cooperate with the victorious army on the airwaves of Radio Sài Gòn. Most of the city homes and businesses were closed. The communist army units were not welcomed as warmly as they might have expected.

Five doors from my home lived an army major and his family. The major, Đặng Sĩ Vĩnh, his wife, and seven children committed suicide after a big lunch. Each drank some kind of sleeping drug and laid down, side by side, on the floor. The major shot his wife, the children, and himself in the head with his .45 pistol. He had scribbled a note: “Dear neighbors, my family can’t live under the com-munist regime. We have to end our misery this way. Please forgive us and help my relatives bury us. In our safe there is a little money. Please use it for our burial expenses. Thank you and farewell!”

All around the capital, privates, sergeants, officers, civil servants, doctors, and statesmen committed suicide. Former minister Trần Chánh Thành also ended his life. Police Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Văn Long shot himself with a pistol in front of the Lower House Building on Tự Do Street.2

Days later we heard that four ARVN generals who were known as incor-ruptible, talented commanders, Nguyễn Viết Thanh, Lê Văn Hưng, Nguyễn Văn Hai, and Phạm Văn Phú, had taken their own lives. The brave province chief of Chương Thiện, Colonel Hồ Ngọc Cẩn, fought to his last minute and was executed by the communists in front of 100 compelled spectators.

Rather than frightening me, their deaths tempted me. For the first time, I knew why people took their own lives when they were in extreme despair. It took me two long days to recover from the desire for a painless death.

I found out later that my mother secretly had my children take turns watch-ing me in case I did “something unusual.” She and my wife hid all the knives, razors, drugs, and ropes.

Page 10: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 459

The way my family took great care of me was one of the many factors that calmed me. Moreover, my mother said in her choked but energetic voice: “They defeated you, but they do not win the total and eternal victory. They can’t do all that they want to destroy us.”

That afternoon while I was upstairs, completely in despair and waiting for the worst thing to come, I heard my mother talking to some young man and inviting him in. I overheard him telling my mom that he was a corporal in one of our Eighteenth Infantry Division combat units.

He had been wounded in his left foot a week before and was in the Cộng Hòa Military General Hospital when the surrender was announced. He was kicked out of the hospital along with his other wounded and sick fighting fellows by the first NVA unit that occupied the hospital.

He had not a penny in his field dress pockets. Hesitantly, he asked my mom for a little money, together with what was given by other families in my neigh-borhood, to help him go back to his home in Cà Mâu, the southernmost prov-ince of Việt Nam 150 miles from Sài Gòn.

My mom called me to come downstairs. He asked my mother if I was her son. My mother thought he would be pleased when she told the poor corporal, “Don’t worry, he is an army major.”

Stepping downstairs, I saw him in his field dress, spotted with blood, the light blue pajamas of the hospital on his left arm. At my mom’s last word, he instinctively jumped up but failed and dropped again to the tile floor, as his painful wound didn’t let him stand up. “Oh, no. I can’t see him,” he stuttered. “He will call me down badly. A soldier goes begging for money. No, he won’t wink at it.”

I quickly stopped him. “Stay there. I’d like to talk to you.” He tried to stand up once again, this time pulling himself up with one hand on the doorknob, the other leaning on a crutch. He tried to raise his right hand to salute me, but stopped before his hand reached his brows.

I felt like laughing but held back and said to him, “Our republic is no more. Our armed forces have collapsed. I am no more a major, and you are no more a corporal. Why do you care?”

The young corporal looked straight at me. I could read a muted protest in his eyes. After a moment of silence, he said with a voice articulated but monoto-nous in deep thinking, “No sir. I don’t think so. Despite what the communists are saying, our people will never forget that you are a major and I am a corporal whenever you or I do anything good or bad.”

At last, he accepted my mother’s gift of VN$2,000 ($4 at the time). The money he was given by my neighbors amounted up to about VN$10,000, enough to pay for the bus and boat fares to his village. One of the cyclo drivers in my neighborhood volunteered to drive him to the bus station where all bus owners

Page 11: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

460 · Victory or Defeat

offered him and soldiers like him free rides to their home provinces. It was one of the cyclo drivers down the alley from my home who had picked up the cor-poral on the street in front of the military hospital and brought him to our neighborhood so that he could get help.

Those cyclo drivers and other witnesses recounted that within minutes of taking over the Cộng Hòa Military General Hospital, the communist soldiers received orders to kick all 1,000 ARVN patients out onto the streets, even those who were on operating tables. Seriously wounded soldiers, whose limbs were torn and bleeding, some even with stomachs cut open and intestines exposed, were pulled out to the terrace in front of the hospital gate. Many died in a short time. I had never imagined that such barbarism would happen.

“Word spread quickly,” said the cyclo drivers in my alley. “In half an hour, hundreds of cyclos rushed into the streets around the hospital and offered the wounded soldiers free rides to wherever they wanted to go. Most were heading for the cross-country bus stations.” He added, “Many cyclo drivers not only gave them free rides but also bought them food. Some even brought them to their homes for nice meals before driving them to the bus stations.”

It was quite a surprise to me. But that evening, the cyclo drivers and some poor workers in the alley made me much more surprised when they came to see me and an army captain, a block from my home.

“You should stay home, particularly at night,” they said. “If VC knock on your door to see you, don’t let them in until we come to stand by you. You’d better call us from your second floor windows. We sure can hear you.”

I shook their hands with sincere thanks. One of them reassured me, “You may have thought I was a VC . . .” He did not go on, but I could guess what he meant to say.

“Aren’t you afraid of being in trouble because of me?” I asked. One of them shook his head and said, “You can’t reason with them, but we poor workers can. They have to rely on us to exist unless we do something really big against them.”

My family home was in a suburb of Sài Gòn where middle-class and poor families had lived together peacefully for many decades. During the war, many peasants from Central Việt Nam provinces moved into Sài Gòn suburbs to avoid the war. Their home villages were under severe communist influence. Many people in Sài Gòn were looking at them dubiously.

They earned their living by menial works including driving cyclos. They used to complain about the government. Their language always made me more convinced that they might have been VCs or at least that they sympathized with the communist side.

On that day, many of my neighbors also admitted that we had been seri-ously wrong. Many facts in war were too complicated and abstract to under-stand, even to us Vietnamese, let alone foreigners.

Page 12: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 461

* * *

Many ARVN units were fighting to the last minute beside the ARVN Eigh-teenth Infantry Division in Long Khánh, north of Sài Gòn. The bold resistance of 100 junior cadets of the Junior Military Academy in Vũng Tầu was remark-able. Two cadets from my neighborhood came back and recounted the story of their short fighting.

There were more than 100 of the junior cadets, most of them twelve to fifteen years old, who stayed at the academy while the others were spending the early summer vacation at home. The advancing communists met fierce resistance from the cadets for a few hours. At last, after accepting a truce, the young boys stood at attention to strike the national colors. Then they snuck out the back gates and into the nearby neighborhood. Communist forces had no choice but to let them go.

The First Month under the Communist R egime

Only two or three hours after NVA forces took over Sài Gòn, many communist field grade officers were fighting one another over the possession of luxurious homes whose owners had fled the country. In some cases, troops under the contending officers were fighting with AK-47 rifles to seize their properties. The most favored targets were beautiful villas around Tân Sơn Nhất Airport.

Ten miles away, communist officers and officials evicted most of the owners from their private villas in the Thủ Đức University Village on short notice and allowed them only to take their clothes and personal articles.

On highways and local roads, our soldiers were robbed of their bikes, espe-cially motorcycles and personal valuables. Besides, several military and police officers were murdered in villages around Sài Gòn and in the provinces in the first three days; many were killed after being robbed. A lot of local government officials and army officers were evicted from their own homes at ten minutes’ notice, leaving behind all their possessions.

Sources from Huế alleged that several hundred Việt Quốc and Đại Việt members were assassinated in the first weeks of April when Huế fell. Most of the other members were sent to reeducation camps with others who had been serving the RVN government.

Fortunately, there was no bloodbath in Sài Gòn but only single cases of covert executions and kidnappings, possibly because the presence of many for-eign observers and reporters hindered them.

In many small Mekong Delta provinces where communist guerrillas’ activi-ties had almost been insignificant for years before 1975, no communist official or officer showed up to take over the province until twenty-four or even forty-eight hours after President Dương Văn Minh announced the unconditional surrender.

Page 13: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

462 · Victory or Defeat

In those localities, only a few dozen VC guerrillas appeared in the province capital cities to accept the surrender. They had to wait several days until ranking com-munists were appointed to assume their responsibilities.

The Longest Weeks

On the first day controlling Sài Gòn, the communist city military command called all former RVN officials and officers to report to its many offices and to register their names and addresses. Everybody was thinking of similar proce-dures that communist forces had applied in Huế during the 1968 Tết Offensive a few days before 5,000 victims were slain and dumped into mass graves. They were frightened at what might become of them, but they had to wait and see without any way to react or resist.

Daily radio programs were filled with arrogant commentaries and boasting news reports. Stories about invented crimes of the former regime were repeated day and night. Communist leaders broke their promises and asserted, “There will be no reconciliation and concordance with civil and military members of the puppet regime.”3

The arrogant conquerors seemed to enjoy humiliating the former Sài Gòn regime, not excluding its fallen soldiers. A few days after April 30, communist authorities destroyed monuments honoring the RVN war dead (front gates, memorials) in many ARVN cemeteries around the country. In some places, they even destroyed their graves. In Sài Gòn, they vandalized the Gò Vấp ARVN Cemetery and displayed a signboard that read, “Here lie the Americans’ puppet soldiers after they have paid for their crimes.” Not long after that, they bulldozed the entire cemetery for their government building construction.

The large ARVN National Cemetery near Sài Gòn-Biên Hòa Highway was still there, but many graves were vandalized. The famous statue “Thương Tiếc” (The Mourning Soldier) at the front of the cemetery was destroyed.

May 1975 saw great and chaotic changes in Sài Gòn. Communist army driv-ers, who used to conduct military trucks only on the jungle trails, drove Molo-tova trucks wildly without any idea about one-way streets, traffic lights, and signs. They caused many fatal accidents.

The first swarm of communist cadres from North Việt Nam rushed to Sài Gòn and other cities in the South. Many of them carried clothes, earthenware pots, low-grade enamel bowls and spoons, chopsticks, and even rice as gifts to their South Vietnamese relatives living in Sài Gòn. They believed that their rela-tives in the South were suffering a great shortage of cooking utensils, clothes, and rice because the Americans had confiscated all consumer goods produced in the South for their American markets. They realized in no time that they had fallen for Hà Nội’s fabricated stories.

Page 14: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 463

North Vietnamese who came to the South later learned the good lessons quickly. They visited with their relatives who settled in Sài Gòn and asked for anything available: mostly clothing, tools, utensils, chinaware, medicines, or some expensive appliances such as electric fans, radios, cassettes, and TV sets.

The former capital of South Việt Nam looked like a patient just released from the hospital. Only small stores were open. Day and night, long military convoys were transporting everything from the occupied South to the North—guns, rifles, jeeps and trucks, military equipment, medicines, furniture, luxury goods, bikes, motorbikes, motors, engines, rice, and almost everything else.

Right after occupying Sài Gòn, communist local leaders quickly installed their ruling machine. People in the neighborhoods had to attend ward meetings three or four nights a week. Lecturers were mostly abecedarian secret agents who had formal educations no higher than second grade.

In some areas, communist local authorities ordered all sewing machines owners to work in co-operatives. In others, they organized villagers into an agricultural co-operative. At some wards in Sài Gòn, communist cadres set up “people’s courts” to try criminals with the attendance of about 100 people at each court. They asked the mob to vote for a sentence after a brief denunciation of the suspects’ crimes. In some extreme cases involving murders, the commu-nist cadres proposed death sentences and insisted on approving votes, but people objected vehemently to the communist cadres’ verdicts.

In the first weeks after April 30, there were orders overtly issued from top-level authority to eradicate every cultural and educational work in the South. Public security cadres coming from the North and newly recruited members searched houses, bookstores, and libraries that they suspected of having many “counterrevolutionary” materials. They confiscated all kinds of publications, disks, and tapes. They burned them or sold them to recycling plants for a little money. Many families and libraries lost their rare and valuable collections of literature, music, and technical publications. Of course, political materials were the first targets, particularly anticommunist papers.

Fortunately, the national library was spared. Besides, many families were somehow aware or had experienced the communists’ cultural policies. They successfully hid their favorite books, tapes, and disks.

In North Việt Nam after the 1954 Geneva Accords when the Việt Minh took control, a campaign was launched to eliminate all noncommunist cultural ma-terials, literature, music recordings and scores, and art. All were confiscated and destroyed.

The trade of discarded papers in the South after April 30, 1975, was prosper-ous. Novels, documentaries, scientific works, magazines, thesauruses, encyclo-pedias, textbooks, and collections of poetry in Vietnamese and foreign languages were sold by panicky owners at dirt-cheap prices. Tons of police fingerprint cards

Page 15: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

464 · Victory or Defeat

and birth, death, and marriage records were sold by communist occupying units to paper mills for recycling.

The first North Vietnamese government and party officials following the front line soldiers to take over military and civilian installations were surprised to see that everything in the South was far different from what they had been taught. Some of them I met frankly admired South Việt Nam’s progress in sci-ence and technology compared with what they observed in the Soviet Union.

But some North Vietnamese specialists with limited technical knowledge couldn’t understand modern technology. North Vietnamese doctors assigned to take over the largest military hospital in Sài Gòn refused the use of the most advanced blood test machine. It was the first sophisticated digital tester recently invented and installed by American specialists at the ARVN Cộng Hòa Military General Hospital that could produce test results in a much shorter time.

According to a friend of mine, a doctor working at the ward, the new com-munist boss stated that the machine was made by the American Imperialists to kill the Vietnamese patriots slowly but certainly. He then ordered workers to dismantle it.

Other better-educated North Vietnamese doctors were honest. Those from Hà Nội who took over Hùng Vương Maternity Hospital in Sài Gòn said to the South Vietnamese doctors who were serving in the hospital, “We are sorry to tell you that in North Việt Nam, uterine perforation occurs in 7–8 percent of cases of uterus curettage. You must be prepared to work under such conditions.” They said so in the handover meeting when the South Vietnamese doctors re-ported that among medical malpractices in South Việt Nam, uterine perforation in curettage procedures rarely if ever occurred.

Most of the Saigonese was surprised when they met communist cadres and soldiers. The communists, the officers in particular, were unmitigated boasters. There were stories recited by thousands of them with the same version. Perhaps they learned them by heart from the same texts at their political indoctrination classes.

One typical lie was that North Vietnamese MiG pilots often lay in ambush by hovering inside large banks of thick clouds, waiting for hours to take down the U.S. warplanes. Another was that a North Việt Nam operator was conduct-ing a single antiaircraft SAM missile in such a way that brought down seven American B-52 bombers: “He was manning the SAM to approach each B-52 so close that he forced the crews to bail out from six of them and finished off the seventh by detonating the missile,” they said.

One of the anecdotes propagated in the NVA political indoctrination classes was about Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Hà Nội to begin his negotia-tions with communist leaders. The story ran that when Kissinger visited the War Museum, the first thing he saw was Hồ Chí Minh’s statement “There is nothing

Page 16: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

The End · 465

more precious than Independence and Freedom” on a large board above the main entrance. The words scared Kissinger into profusely sweating, and he quickly accepted Hà Nội leaders’ conditions for a peace agreement.

The fact that so many North Vietnamese soldiers and educated people believed such impossible stories was incredible to the foreigners’ ears, but it was the moral strength of the North Vietnamese Army.

South Vietnamese people on first contact with the communist forces were somewhat startled about corruption in the NVA units. Right on the first day in Sài Gòn, all of those in charge of buying food and goods for their units openly proposed fraudulent deals to storekeepers and other vendors. They would pay the amount of money on the vendors’ invoice while the actual quantity of merchan-dise they received would be about 50 percent. The two sides would divide the overpayment.

Before April 1975, most South Vietnamese believed that under the iron fist of the communist regime, corruption wasn’t able to exist in the North. After meeting newcomers from the North, South Vietnamese learned that right since 1954 when the communists took over Hà Nội, corruption was spreading all over North Việt Nam. In the land where people were living in extreme poverty, bribes for a job in a factory could cost an applicant a month’s pay, which was similar to what a South Vietnamese had to pay for being hired as a secretary in an office. According to the North Vietnamese, most officials and officers manag-ing the financial or logistic offices were rich, several times richer than their counterparts in other branches.

For mer RVN Civil Servants a nd Soldiers

As I mentioned earlier, on May 1, all former South Vietnamese soldiers, civil servants, and members of political parties were to report to the dozen commu-nist security offices in Sài Gòn. We were told to register our name, address, rank, job, and unit or agency in which we served. Then we were told to go home and await further instructions.

Despair turned me to extreme pessimism. From then until forty-five days later, when we were imprisoned, I always wore clothes bought in Fort Benning with colorful patterns and styles that were seldom found in Việt Nam. In 1968 at Huế, where hundreds of victims were buried in mass graves, their relatives quickly identified only remains clad in garments with rare colors and patterns.

The new communist authorities didn’t do anything brutal against most of us former RVN officers in Sài Gòn. Killing, torturing, and looting occurred in the countryside.

We were not considered citizens of the new regime, nor aliens, nor professed prisoners. We just stayed home and might visit with friends within the capital city.

Page 17: A Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars (excerpt)

Copyri

ghted

mate

rial

Indian

a Univ

ersity

Pres

s

466 · Victory or Defeat

In the first few months, the Communist Military Administration had only a limited number of security agents while communist army units were able to take care of military matters. Without enough security agents, the communist author-ity could not keep close watch over former RVN government and military mem-bers. Therefore, most of us were not harassed. The communist political security agencies’ efforts were directed at those who were key persons in RVN intelligence agencies and especially the CIA informants. Many of them were detained or inter-rogated for intelligence information. Many arrests were made at night.

Thus the Việt Na m War Stopped

My stories of the war should have ended here. However, the consequences of the war have been lingering endlessly since April 30, 1975. I am one of the mil-lions of Vietnamese on both sides who bear scars from the sixty-year conflict. So my memories should go on with what happened to me after my fellows and I were incarcerated until the day I moved to the United States. Events in South Việt Nam after the communist takeover basically defined the cause of war.

Stories of life in Vietnamese communist prison camps could take up a few hundred pages in a separate volume. Therefore, I will only describe the most remarkable events in the following pages of this memoir.

Years after “Black April,” as Vietnamese refugees called the month when Sài Gòn fell, I only regret two things: I did not fight to the last minute as Mrs. Mulhall said, and I did not fire any round for the old lady and the old gentleman on the Greyhound bus as they had requested.